And basically all the songs from Splash, Raaban Inc., Boosterz Inc., all these guys active back in the days. Also a lot of guys here on NG do a lot of tracks in this style.

In these types of song (a mix from hands up, dance and trance?) the main melody is the most important part of the song. Try to listen to Distorted reality: basically there are the melody, the chords, the bells and the bass. And the track still kicks asses!

I know music theory: chords, major and minor scales, dominant and tonic relationship, etc.

What I want to know (and I know it's not easy and can't be explained): how these guys made their melodies? In this type of music, the tempo is usually around 140. The melodies are very powerful, even if you listen them alone. And when you hear the first two notes of the song: ring!, you just remember the song easily. I've even got some MIDIs floating around.

TL;DR: catchy and powerful melodies in dance hands up trance style, any hints?

Remember: there is no bad music, just bad tastes.
Anyway, it isn't that easy. Sometimes doing the melody first it's better, sometimes is better fitting a melody into an existing good chord progression...

At 10/1/12 03:15 PM, Lachi wrote:
Thanks. I guess I just need more experience and practice to get nice tunes.
Come on, Crying Soul has a very good flow!

It's not hard to achieve a good flow when you keep the same chord progression going for the whole song and make literally everything rely on it.

Find what works best for you. For me, it's doodling on the piano or in FL until I come up with a melody, and then adding chords under it. Just avoid generic chord progressions please, or if you do use them, then be creative with them and don't make your melody sound forced just to make it fit with the chords.

At 10/1/12 03:15 PM, Lachi wrote:
Thanks. I guess I just need more experience and practice to get nice tunes.
Come on, Crying Soul has a very good flow!

It's not hard to achieve a good flow when you keep the same chord progression going for the whole song and make literally everything rely on it.

Find what works best for you. For me, it's doodling on the piano or in FL until I come up with a melody, and then adding chords under it. Just avoid generic chord progressions please, or if you do use them, then be creative with them and don't make your melody sound forced just to make it fit with the chords.

Thank you for the answer.
I *can* play the keyboard (I have an old MIDI keyboard), but I can't play at a tempo of 140 a quarter note. I usually slow down everything or just record a basic pattern of notes, or a catchy motif if I find one. THEN I start to edit it on piano roll.

I know everyone has its own style of writing, the fact is: I don't know if mine is good.

I usually try to find chord progressions that don't suck and then build a melody off that, and then just incorporate various ideas that have similar chord progressions, and then throw in a secondary, unrelated chord progression to break things up.

how these guys made their melodies? In this type of music, the tempo is usually around 140. The melodies are very powerful, even if you listen them alone. And when you hear the first two notes of the song: ring!, you just remember the song easily. I've even got some MIDIs floating around

Well, you have to be creative to make a melody that can encompass an idea of a chord... One would think there is a specific strategy that works with the said chord, and there is... MUSIC THEORY! Learn about the scales that you can play on the said chord and you pretty much have your starting point. However, expression and all that other good stuff purely relies on you.

But I would recommend that you learn some other chords because that once specifically has been driven to the ground due to overuse.

At 10/1/12 07:26 PM, zelazon wrote:
Well, you have to be creative to make a melody that can encompass an idea of a chord... One would think there is a specific strategy that works with the said chord, and there is... MUSIC THEORY! Learn about the scales that you can play on the said chord and you pretty much have your starting point. However, expression and all that other good stuff purely relies on you.

Yes, if you're not confident about composition or about your ability to learn music intuitively then read up on music theory. I personally never have (though that doesn't mean I haven't picked up a large number of ideas and principles inherent in writing good music with experience and experimentation) but in your case you may find it useful.

Rocker, Composer and World Ambassador for Foxes! I'm on Youtube. Veteran REAPER user. Click below for the song that got me 2nd place. :)

At 10/1/12 08:36 PM, MetalRenard wrote:
Yes, if you're not confident about composition or about your ability to learn music intuitively then read up on music theory. I personally never have (though that doesn't mean I haven't picked up a large number of ideas and principles inherent in writing good music with experience and experimentation) but in your case you may find it useful.

Well, me specifically, I've barely started taking up ideas with Music theory because even though I do have an intuitive understand of the ways certain chords work(which is why I can start doing orchestra music if I so choose to), it would be to a much greater advantage to have a certain understand of why they work and also giving me a way to explain the methods without them being intuit.

This guy's case is that he want to make a melody around a chord, and the only to really understand which scales to use (SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many people make the mistake of using wrong scales on certain chords on this site lol)... It's trivial and intuit to me only because I was forced to practice many of the scales growing up, but learning more about it through music theory gives better insight as to why these certain chords work.

Finally, you don't necessarily have to be confident to want to learn more about the art. Nobody's perfect, and music theory is but one of the resources that an artist can use to become better. But my argument is that it requires not only the theory, but also self expression, because it can only accentuate what you can do.

At 10/2/12 01:28 AM, johnfn wrote:
There sure is a lot of pretention in here. This is what you get when you listen to people who produce music for too long, rather than people who listen to it.

Yes, C-F-Am-G is a really overused, but that's because it's a really powerful chord progression.

What do "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys, "There is a Light that will Never Go Out" by the Smiths and "In the Aeroplane over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel have in common?

1. They're each easily representative of some of the greatest music ever written.
2. They each use C-F-Am-G.

So there you have it. C-F-Am-G isn't going to hold you back. It's not like all the greatest songs use complex suspended tritones or something ridiculous - and you don't need to either.

Of course you don't but the fact is that using that or any other generic chord progression instantly makes music sound cheesy and uncreative, unless you actually do something good with it, which usually isn't the case. Chord progressions like that are popular because they're GOOD, that I agree with, but honestly they're so overused that it makes it even harder to make something compositionally original with them.

So IMO it's best to think of your own chord progressions rather than using the "tried and true" ones, unless you're really creative and know how to make those generic overused chord progressions sound creative and unique despite their reputation.

It's kinda like choosing a default Microsoft Word template/colour-scheme for your school project as opposed to making your own artistic template yourself. The first school project needs to be really 'out there' in creativity to make up for its overused template but the second having an original template is already more commendable and interesting.

Of course people will disagree with me but that's my view on the subject. What really matters is that the chord progression you use is good, you don't 'force' a melody into it, and you keep your song sounding unique and not like the hundreds of crappy songs there are on the radio nowadays.

At 10/2/12 11:15 AM, Step wrote:
It's kinda like choosing a default Microsoft Word template/colour-scheme for your school project as opposed to making your own artistic template yourself. The first school project needs to be really 'out there' in creativity to make up for its overused template but the second having an original template is already more commendable and interesting.

I'm not sure if that analogy is the best because in most cases, if you try to be creative with a microsoft word template (especially for written essays), you're only going to give yourself a bad grade

At 10/2/12 12:23 PM, zelazon wrote:
I'm not sure if that analogy is the best because in most cases, if you try to be creative with a microsoft word template (especially for written essays), you're only going to give yourself a bad grade

English-major here...

Yeah OK pretend it's an artistic project or something then.

Whatever, I was always terrible at this analogy stuff. You can't spell analogy without spelling anal :(.

Don't rely too heavily on reasoning/mathematical/rational intellect to make music, but rather try to imagine the sounds in your head, or start to get a sense of them, and go from there.

If nothing is coming, start by imagining a sound you know, like imagine the sound of the trance track in your head without listening to it, and really feel all of the detail. Or if you are listening to this music and you get the urge, just sing along random stuff. Just do whatever sounds good, and just have fun.

At 10/1/12 01:22 PM, Lachi wrote:
I know music theory: chords, major and minor scales, dominant and tonic relationship, etc.

I don't think those help much.

It's matter on what will you produce and why it affects your audiences, not how to do music the 'right' way (ye, pro-theorists, there is no 'a' right way to make thing, bite it).

In this type of music, the tempo is usually around 140.

140 is an over-hyped tempo. I can say "good shits" 'usually around' 35, 70 or 280, too. It doesn't matter! Choose your own tempos that you feel right in your own way.

The melodies are very powerful, even if you listen them alone. And when you hear the first two notes of the song: ring!, you just remember the song easily. I've even got some MIDIs floating around.

The moment you are into something, you tend to remember and you start to learn from it. It's normal. However different people have different opinions. You are welcome to flame on me (dare to do that) because I find it's fucking boring. But!...

Like I said, if you are into something, that much, learn it. Try to re-construct the original melody, while critically analyze it.

# Architecture - how does it work, what time signature, what instruments, what is the climax
# Core - why does it work this way, what happen if I switch/change this/that, will it still work the same, what different result(s) will it give
# Shell - why did the original composer choose this, why does he/she decide it in this part of the song

TL;DR: catchy and powerful melodies in dance hands up trance style, any hints?

I compose music (no matter what) based on emotional and environmental motivations ATM. In fact on the fly composition gives me stronger and efficiency results than planned goals. Most importantly, do whatever you feel is right and good melodies will come easily as a swallowing puddings!

Music theory is a tool, not a guidebook. While I agree that there is no 'right' way in music, there ARE good ideas and bad ideas. Music theory's a tool that makes it easier to integrated good ideas into your track. You can make your track more interesting and it really opens the door to new possibilities.

Example; before a good friend of mine told me about musical modes, I thought there was major and minor, and that's it. Everything I made was in major or minor (usually minor). Then, he told me about musical modes and as you can imagine I felt like I suddenly discovered America. Now I use different modes in my music and my melodies have become so much more original and different from my other melodies.

I was also able to apply my knowledge of modes to a school project which forced me to make North African/Middle Eastern music. My friend said the Jewish and Phrygian scales are used a lot in North African/Middle Eastern music. I used them and the result was incredibly authentic and pretty solid, compositionally.

However that doesn't make it a guidebook; you still need creativity to produce something moving and unique. But come on there's a reason why music theory geniuses have much more interesting (and arguably amazing) composition than your average musician whose music theory knowledge goes just as far as time signatures and key signatures.

At 10/3/12 12:36 AM, Step wrote:
Music theory is a tool, not a guidebook. While I agree that there is no 'right' way in music, there ARE good ideas and bad ideas. Music theory's a tool that makes it easier to integrated good ideas into your track. You can make your track more interesting and it really opens the door to new possibilities.

It does because most of the chord I used in the past, I've intuited how they worked through trial and error, but once you really look at it more closely (I'm absolutely loving dominant seventh chords right now, and might make a song based on some of the chords lol), it seems to be really beneficial to know this stuff.

I think the biggest choice is not whether to learn theory or not, it's your approach to learning it. You can either go to school to learn it, learn it by yourself at home or just learn it through trial and error. Personally I opt for the third and possibly least efficient way in most people's eyes and they're probably right.
I choose to do it that way though because it gives me the greatest taste of real freedom and exploration. I like to learn that way and so far it hasn't got in my way. I hope you can find your own way and all of the are valid so long as you actually LEARN.

Best of luck!

Rocker, Composer and World Ambassador for Foxes! I'm on Youtube. Veteran REAPER user. Click below for the song that got me 2nd place. :)